Acquired by Enova for ~$90M (announced; ~$122M final) in Oct 2020 — a fraction of its IPO value.
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2006–2021
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2006
🌱
2006
Founded to lend where banks wouldn't
Data and algorithms underwrite loans to small merchants traditional banks overlooked.
Wikipedia
Dec 2014
📈
Dec 2014
The peak: a ~$1.3B IPO$1.3B
OnDeck lists on the NYSE and the shares quickly trade above $20 — online lending's big moment.
SEC S-1
2015–19
2015–19
The long grind down
Credit losses, funding-cost pressures and skepticism about the model wear the stock down for years.
Macrotrends
2016
💔
2016
Slips out of the club
Less than two years after the IPO, the market value falls below $1B.
Macrotrends
2020
2020
The pandemic hits its borrowers
COVID's blow to small businesses lands squarely on OnDeck's loan book — the final blow.
SEC filing
Oct 2020
🤝
Oct 2020
Acquired by Enova for ~$90M$90M
$1.89 a share — roughly $90M at announcement, ~$122M by close — a ~91% fall from the IPO.
Enova
2020–21
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2020–21
Long-tenured employees on Glassdoor marked the Enova deal as a turning point, describing a culture that shifted afterward from a growth-focused tech company to a leaner, metrics-driven lender.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
OnDeck was a pioneer of online small-business lending, using data and algorithms to underwrite loans to merchants traditional banks overlooked, and its December 2014 IPO valued it around $1.3B with shares quickly trading above $20.
Credit losses, funding-cost pressures and skepticism about its model ground the stock down for years, and the pandemic's hit to small businesses was the final blow. In 2020 consumer-lender Enova acquired OnDeck for about $1.89 a share — roughly $90-122M, a fraction of its IPO value.
